Chapter 2261 - 1467: The Body Is the Foundation of the Revolution

Chapter 2261: Chapter 1467: The Body Is the Foundation of the Revolution

In fact, the best way to chat with Xu Zhiliang is through WhatsApp; it’s much smoother than a face-to-face conversation.

Yang Ping returned to the office, leaned back in his chair to rest for a while, until his phone woke him up with a vibration.

He stretched his neck, touched the corner of his mouth, and found no drool. Sleeping while leaning on the chair without drooling requires skill.

He reached for his phone and saw it was Tang Shun.

"Professor, Weber’s experiment results are out."

Yang Ping sat upright, rubbed his neck with his hand, his voice still hoarse from sleep: "What results?"

"All three independent repeats of the homogenate experiment are completed, and the results are highly consistent. The differentiation ratios are 31.8%, 33.2%, and 32.5%, with a mean of 32.5%, control group at 4.9%. The difference is extremely significant, with a p-value of less than 0.0001."

Yang Ping closed his eyes and went over these numbers in his mind. 31.8, 33.2, 32.5, mean 32.5, standard deviation less than 1. The repeatability of this data is so good it resembles a physics experiment rather than a biology experiment.

"Where’s Weber?" he asked.

"At the gym."

Yang Ping was taken aback: "The gym?"

"Yep, he said he started working out today and arranged to go with Manstein."

Yang Ping’s mouth twitched slightly, this is the right attitude. Experiments won’t reward you for staying up all night, but your body will retaliate.

"Don’t disturb them now; let them come to my office together with Manstein after they finish exercising."

"Alright!"

Yang Ping hung up the phone, rested a little longer, and checked the time. Weber and Manstein should be done exercising by now, so he stood up, stretched his neck, and went to the meeting room.

Tang Shun was already there, writing on the whiteboard. He redrew the "map" from yesterday, marking seven modules with different colored pens and listing the key points under each module.

Manstein and Weber were sitting on the sofa. Weber still had the flushed look of someone who just ran five kilometers, in much better spirits than yesterday. Manstein’s hair was wet, having just showered.

"You two deserve praise, finally taking your health seriously! But be sure to get enough sleep, that’s most important," Yang Ping said, noticing their post-exercise glow.

"Of course, health is the capital for revolution, I remember this saying well," Weber said happily.

Manstein nodded in agreement.

Yang Ping sat down, "I reviewed the data, three repeats, standard deviation less than 1. This repeatability is excellent. It shows you’ve pinpointed the real variables, not random noise."

Weber said: "I now believe the variables are not just CO₂ concentration and temperature, but the overall stability of the environment. The frequency of incubator openings, room traffic, even the air conditioning cycles affect the cell state. The high success rate for Saturday’s experiments was because the system was stable for four hours, uninterrupted and undisturbed."

"So what’s the solution?" Yang Ping asked.

Weber and Manstein exchanged a glance. Manstein spoke: "We’ve revised the process. First, concentrate all sensitive experiments on weekends. Second, put a registration sheet at the incubator door during weekdays; whoever opens the door must sign, and wait fifteen minutes before any subsequent operations. Third, I’ve ordered a batch of independent mini incubators, each experiment using its own box, avoiding interference."

Yang Ping nodded. These are sensible solutions, relying on systems and tools, not over-straining.

"Another piece of good news," Weber said, "the glycosylation experiments are done. Recombinant proteins from mammalian cells have 43% higher activity than the Escherichia coli versions. We conducted surface plasmon resonance analysis and found the glycosylated version binds to receptors with high affinity, having a dissociation constant an order of magnitude lower than the non-glycosylated version."

He opened his laptop and displayed a graph. Two curves, one rising steeply and descending gently, the other with a more gradual slope both ways. The former is the glycosylated version, the latter the non-glycosylated version.

"What does this mean?" Tang Shun asked.

Yang Ping looked at the curve: "It means once the glycosylated version binds to a receptor, it doesn’t easily unbind. In vivo, it suggests longer action duration, stronger signal intensity, and lower dosage requirements."

"Exactly," Weber said, "and at the cellular level, the glycosylated version’s ability to activate downstream pathways is three times that of the Escherichia coli version. At the same concentration, the glycosylated version recruits more receptors into the signal complexes."

Manstein added: "This finding is valuable. Many recombinant protein drugs are expressed in Escherichia coli and lack glycosylation, resulting in much lower activity than native proteins in the body. Our current data indicates using mammalian expression systems might reduce the effective dose of K Therapy to a third or even less of the original."

Yang Ping leaned on his chair, fingers gently tapping the armrest, his habitual gesture when thinking.

"Write a separate short communication specifically on the impact of glycosylation on activity. Submit it to the Biochemical Journal; don’t wait for the main paper. This finding has direct guidance significance for the field; publishing it early allows others to use it sooner."

Weber nodded and noted this down in his notebook.

Yang Ping stood up, walked to the whiteboard. He looked at the seven-module repair program map for a few seconds, then said, "Four hundred seventeen nodes, two thousand thirty-eight connections. This isn’t a task one person can complete. It’s the work of several generations. We don’t need to rush; take it step by step, ensuring each step is steady."